The Way of the Wicked will Perish

Psalms 1:1-2 ESV

 

“Blessed is the man

    who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,

nor stands in the way of sinners,

    nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

but his delight is in the law of the Lord,

    and on his law he meditates day and night.”

 

Basically, we are blessed of God when we do not adopt the ways of this sinful world, when we do not take the world’s counsel in place of God’s, when we do not take our stand on unrighteousness, and when we do not scoff at the things of God, but rather we delight in the Lord and in the truths of his word and in his counsel, and our desire is to obey his word and to please Him in all that we are and do and say.

 

And the only way that this is going to happen in our lives is if we are meditating on the Scriptures day and night, but not just meditating, but when we are actually putting the word of God into practice in our lives. But in order to be able to put the word into practice we must know what it teaches us in context, for many false teachings arise from Scriptures taught out of context. So study the Scriptures in context, please.

 

And the only way in which this is going to happen in our lives is if we have been crucified with Christ in death to sin and if we have been reborn of the Spirit of God to walk in newness of life in Christ Jesus, our Lord, and if we are indeed walking in obedience to his commands in his power and strength. For the Scriptures are spiritually discerned and it is the Holy Spirit who leads us to all truth, so we have to first of all be in relationship with Jesus Christ.

 

But many people today are professing faith in Jesus Christ who have not died with Christ to sin and who are not living to him and to his righteousness. They are listening to the world’s counsel, and they have adopted the ways of the world, and they are believing a false gospel which tells them that they don’t have to surrender their lives to Jesus, and they don’t have to obey his commands, and they don’t have to forsake their sins.

 

Psalms 1:3-4 ESV

 

“He is like a tree

    planted by streams of water

that yields its fruit in its season,

    and its leaf does not wither.

In all that he does, he prospers.

The wicked are not so,

    but are like chaff that the wind drives away.”

 

Those who have been crucified with Christ in death to sin, who are continuing to daily die with Christ to sin and to live to him and to his righteousness, who are walking in obedience to his commands, and whose lives are surrendered to the Lord to be his servants are steadfast in faith and purpose and they are bearing fruit for God’s eternal kingdom, even fruit they may not yet see, because they are obeying the Lord.

 

Those who make no profession of faith in Jesus Christ and those whose profession is lip service only are among the wicked whose good deeds will blow away with the wind. What they are doing in this life will perish with them because they are not working for the Lord but for themselves, not to please God, but for their own selfish pleasure. Some of them are the double-minded who pretend service to God when they are serving themselves.

 

And many people are walking in wickedness even though they are professing faith in Jesus Christ with their lips. They are going through the motions of religious service while their hearts are far from God. They perform to get acceptance and approval from other humans, but they disregard the commands of God and they work against him, not for him. And they are following worldly wisdom and not the counsel of God.

 

For they have bought into a lie which is intended to appease the flesh and so they live on in their sins, in direct defiance to God, making sin their practice and not making righteousness their practice. They feign love for God, but they are really all about self and self-pleasure and self-indulgence and not about living their lives to please the Lord. For they do not want to forsake their sins, but they want to keep living for self-pleasure.

 

Psalms 1:5-6 ESV

 

“Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,

    nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous;

for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,

    but the way of the wicked will perish.”

 

One day we are all going to stand before God and we will be judged by God by our deeds. As much as this modern day gospel will try to convince you that your deeds don’t matter, they do. All throughout the New Testament Scriptures we are taught that our deeds matter to God. For if we sow to please the flesh, from the flesh we will reap destruction. But if we sow to please the Spirit, then from the Spirit we will reap eternal life.

 

If sin is what we practice but righteousness is not what we practice, and if we walk according to the flesh and not according to the Spirit, then we will not inherit eternal life with God. We will die in our sins because we refused to die with Christ to our sins. If we say we are in fellowship with God but we walk (in conduct, in practice) in sin, we are liars who do not live by the truth. The same applies if we say we love God but we don’t obey him.

 

We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. As we have always obeyed, we are to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in us, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Jesus gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

 

So, please take this to heart. What we do in this life matters for our eternity. Don’t believe the lies which tell you that you can believe in Jesus Christ, be forgiven your sins, and have heaven guaranteed you when you die, but that you can still live in sin, deliberately and habitually doing what is evil in the sight of God, doing harm to other humans. For one day you will stand before God and he is going to tell you to depart from him, that he never knew you.

 

[Eph 2:10; Php 2:12-13; Tit 2:11-14; 1 Co 15:58; Tit 3:8; Jas 2:17; Rom 2:6-8; Gal 5:16-21; Eph 5:3-6; Gal 6:7-8; 1 Jn 1:5-9; 1 Jn 2:3-6; 1 Jn 3:4-10; 1 Co 6:9-10; 2 Co 5:10; Rom 6:1-23; Rom 8:1-17; Matt 7:21-23]

 

The Prayer

 

Written by David Foster, Carole Bayer Sager,

Alberto Testa and Tony Renis

 

I pray you'll be our eyes

And watch us where we go

And help us to be wise

In times when we don't know

 

Let this be our prayer

When we lose our way

Lead us to a place

Guide us with your grace

To a place where we'll be safe.

 

I pray we'll find your light

And hold it in our hearts

When the stars go out each night

Remind us where you are.

 

Let this be our prayer

When shadows fill our day

Lead us to a place

Guide us with your grace

To a place where we'll be safe.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqFCbtRz1Z0

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P.S. This is not an endorsement of the singers other than as musicians